Workmen's advocate., 1887-01-22

ouI iNlH, io'V
 FELLOW CITIZENS AND FRIENDS:
 Permit me to-day to make the Labor Movement, the so-called Social Question, the subject of my remarks. In view of the close connection between the politi- cal and the social conditions of nation, every constituent has well-founded right to demand of his representative social confession of faith besides his po- litical one. shall endeavor to meet this demand with the utmost frankness.
 One of the greatest thinkers of an tiquity, Aristotle, divides the whole hu- man race into two classes, free men and slave natures. The Greeks he declares are appointed by reason of their free na- ture to rule over other people. The bar barous races on the contrary, are fitted for being ruled and performing the ser vices of slaves. But slavery and slave labor he explains as a social necessity; as the indispensable material formation of State and Society; for if the free citi zens were obliged to do the work re- quired for their maintenance, how could they have the time and the wish to cul- tivate their intelligence and attend to the affairs of the State: And yet, Aris- totle makes a remarkable observation as to the conceivableness of a society with out slavery. If, he says, an inanimate effect, tool, an implement, could ren- der the service of the slave. if every in- strument could perform it's function at command or, still better, without even command, as the old tradition relates of sings of the three-legged table of Heph- Rstus which entered the halls of the Gods of it's own motion; if the looms would weave and the zither produce its tones spontaneously, then the artiticers would need no helpers and the masters no slaves.
 Now, everyone knows that the miracle here sketched has to great extent been wrought and that without the help or intervention of the gods, in the most natural way in the world, by insight into the laws of nature and mastery of it's forces. What once seemed impossible to the wisest of the Greeks happens daily before our eyes. But how has the miracle worked? Has the success which Aristotle supposed, attended it? Expe- rience teaches that the wealth of nations has been immeasurably increased by the magnificent mechanical appliances of our time. But the tolsome, anxious lot of the laboring class has been anything but frightened.
 Now, let us carry this dream of Aris- totle farther in the light of actual expe- rience. Let us assume that in the remote future of the human race the soil of the whole earth had passed into the hands individual owners, and man had attained by the progress of knowledge to the ab- solute control over nature. Suppose the perfection of mechanical contrivance to have gone so far that machinery itself is produced and tended by machinery, and human labor is thus minimized if not superseded. What would be the result of such state of things? In conse- quence of the attractive power which large capital exercises upon small a con- paratively small number of wealthy persons would hold exclusive possess ion of all machinery and other implements of labor. The whole income of the na- tion, all the goods requisite for the necessities and enjoyments of life would fall to these few alone and that right fully according to the views now current.
 Under such circumstances, human labor being wholly valueless, what would become of the non-posseesing mass if the capitalists did not furnish them the bread of charity? What else would remain to these unfortunates than to die of starva- ton or to reverse the existing conditions of production and possession if not by cunning, then by force?
 It will be said that this picture is merely a horrible fancy, that such state of things can never be reached. 1 admit, not because the thing itself is in- conceivable but because sane men and women will never let it go so far. But can we deny that our present social life, founded upon Capitalist rule and Wage Labor, moves in direction which, if it .l-...ll ,.,.....